DALLAS — The federal criminal trial for Dr. Raynaldo Ortiz, the Dallas anesthesiologist accused of tampering with IV bags, finished its first week Friday.
Testimony resumes at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Jurors have Monday off because a prosecution witness is unavailable that day. Prosecutors told U.S. District Judge David Godbey they expect to rest their case next week, and defense attorneys said they might finish their portion of the case by late next week.
Federal prosecutors allege Ortiz poisoned saline IV bags in the summer of 2022 when he worked at Baylor Scott and White Surgicare North Dallas, resulting in serious cardiac emergencies for several patients and even the death of a fellow anesthesiologist who took an IV bag home to treat her dehydration.
Friday's testimony was mostly technical. Government witnesses told jurors about lab tests that showed patients who suffered cardiac events had heart-accelerating drugs in their systems, and IV bags tested positive for some of those same drugs.
Defense attorney John Nicholson pressed a former University of North Texas chemist who oversaw the testing of the IV bags, questioning whether his lab had experience handling criminal cases.
Dr. Guido Verbeck, now with Augusta University in Georgia, defended his work, saying he was certain that the IV bags -- which should only contain saline solution -- had small holes in them, and that they contained substances that could elevate heart rates.
A former IRS agent testified that Ortiz's two companies -- a medical billing firm and a partnership of fellow anesthesiologists -- brought in millions of dollars a year in gross revenue, but that profits began to fall around 2019 when Ortiz began doing fewer surgeries at some surgical centers because of complaints against him.
At one point, Ortiz had more than a half million dollars in liens for unpaid federal income tax, the witness testified.
Nicholson, the defense lawyer, challenged the assertion that Ortiz was going broke around the time of the medical complaints, pointing out that his client still reported more than $1.7 million in income on his taxes in 2019 and 2020.
Ortiz had been earning between $2 million and $3 million annually in prior years.
The defense called one witness out of order, a woman who had managed Ortiz's business affairs for two decades. She said when Covid hit in 2019, Ortiz's business decreased along with every other doctor unable to perform as many elective surgeries as before. She testified he made more than $1 million in 2022, before his arrest that September.
Ortiz faces up to life in prison if convicted at trial.
